Q- The disruption began at 2:34 p.m. New York time and was caused by an internal problem, spokesman Kevin Pursglove said. Engineers were working to fix the problems, he said. -EQ
posted on January 3, 2001 08:28:53 PM
My brother is a program analyst at FedEx in Memphis and he is still working because of these same problems. It is definitely widespread.
posted on January 3, 2001 08:35:07 PM
Let's see... how does that IBM commercial go. Something like... We're losing $1 million an hour. Meg leans over to her assistant, "And who's responsible for making sure this runs right?"
"You are."
Then it hits her.
I guess she shouldn't have hired all those out of work guys from the Commodore Amiga team.
posted on January 3, 2001 08:46:44 PM
eBay was hacked on March 13th 1999
If I remember correctly, the AB was taken over for a few hours with a page showing some weird message. It was supposedly accomplished by a 16 year old student. The info used to be posted in more detail, showing the message, but now simply remains as a hack date on this site.
Also, sometime in 99 eBay's site was compromised by someone who posted some info here on AW. This same person emailed several AW users with a way to get into *anyones* Contact info etc. With the info he/she provided, any user with the "secret" trick, could access bids, cancel bids, leave feedback, etc-etc-etc. No ones account was safe. All one needed was a user ID, and they could do anything that user could do, with no one being the wiser.
I was sent the info from a concerned user who received this email from the AW poster, and sure enough, it worked. Myself & a few others contacted eBay & the hole was closed within 24-48 hrs as I recall.
edited to add the hackers page
[ edited by reddeer on Jan 3, 2001 08:49 PM ]
posted on January 3, 2001 08:51:46 PM
Safeharbor has the spam ad and I presume it's made its way to the Legal Dept. by now.
We just get handed what eBay wants to hand us through Kevin. Is anyone having trouble with the AW site tonight? I've had a little.
posted on January 3, 2001 08:59:54 PM
Someone said they are changing the color scheme... from purple to Sooner Red??? Usually, when they are down , it does cost us. In fact, when back up, check to see if we now have a charge for BIN.
[ edited by fancydancy on Jan 3, 2001 09:03 PM ]
posted on January 4, 2001 09:40:07 AMCollegepark: That's the typical make-money-in-bulk-email spam that was pioneered during the CyberPromo days a few years ago, packaged up with even more smooth talking and cranky defensiveness.
Gotta love the if-only-one-in-a-thousand talk of success. Directly waste the time of the other 99.9% of people for the sake of 1 in a thousand. Telemarketing probably has similar "success" rates, yet 700,000 households in Connecticut has signed up for a program to block telemarketers, in the apparently short period the program has been in place. Why? Non opt-in direct marketing is one of the most needless annoyances and wastes of people's time (and sometimes money) there is.
Ironically, if spamming were so truly and universally successful, we'd all be hearing from many times more spammers. Even though some people are receiving half a dozen or more spams a day, that would still be the equivalent of "only" a couple hundred spammers sending one piece of junk a month. Of course, not all spammers have the same email lists, but we're still talking small numbers of people. Finally, this spam is really nothing more than get-rich-quick junk dressed in new rags.
As to the eBay part, notice there are "only" 1,000,000+ addresses. eBay claims almost 20 times more customers. Either it was a limited "hack," or this particular list was derived the hard way, by looking underneath eBay IDs (though I'd think eBay could set up some script to watch for anomolous IDs that are looking up unusual numbers of other IDs), in which cases the addresses would be only the ones used more recently/frequently (which I guess is what the user of such lists would likely prefer).
It seems evident eBay did realize there is some sort of problem ultimately relating to spam, but it is hard to tell, because they have also lumped "fee avoidance" items in with the "spam" items.
eBay's 10-Q statement is interesting, especially the statements bhearsch capitalized. A few of those sound like common dot-com risks, but most of the ones she highlighted were interesting, such as the lack of full redundancy and how it speaks of a "hacker" in the singular like it's a specific problem rather than a general risk.
So indeed, some of the spam we're receiving could be coming from a break-in and theft. Prior to about March or April 2000 or so, I had received only about 6 spams in the prior 19 months. That rate abruptly went up 100x to about one a day. Anyone else notice such a jump?
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
posted on January 4, 2001 04:59:10 PM
Gee, it seems I missed some posts in this thread that were made by some Italian poster? Most of the missing posts were in my email but, unfortunately, the majority of them were duplicates of the same posts made by Mr. Italy. If he's still lurking I would like to clarify that the SEC filings are PUBLIC records and anyone may access them.
smw, how are you doing? I kind of liked your post before the edit.
Hi dc9a320. Yes, I think the hacker reference refers to one PARTICULAR hacker who claims to have broken into our computer system.
I don't know if the spam email is related to this incident or not but here is some more food for thought:
Quoted from the same SEC filing on page 33, the bolding is mine.
NEW AND EXISTING REGULATIONS COULD HARM OUR BUSINESS
"Several states have proposed legislation that would limit the uses of
personal user information gathered online or require online services to
establish privacy policies. The Federal Trade Commission also has recently
settled several proceedings regarding the manner in which personal information
is collected from users and provided to third parties. THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
ALSO HAS RECENTLY SETTLED SEVERAL PROCEEDINGS REGARDING THE MANNER IN WHICH PERSONAL INFORMATION IS COLLECTED FROM USERS AND PROVIDED TO THIRD PARTIES. CHANGES TO
EXISTING LAWS OR THE PASSAGE OF NEW LAWS INTENDED TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES COULD
DIRECTLY AFFECT THE WAY WE DO BUSINESS or could create uncertainty in the marketplace.
This could reduce demand for our services, increase the cost of doing business
as a result of litigation costs or increased service delivery costs, or
otherwise harm our business. In addition, because our services are accessible
worldwide, and we facilitate sales of goods to users worldwide, foreign
jurisdictions may claim that we are required to comply with their laws. For
example, a French court has recently ruled that a U.S. website must comply with
French laws regarding content. As we have expanded our international activities,
we have become obligated to comply with the laws of the countries in which we
operate. Laws regulating Internet companies outside of the United States may be
less favorable then those in the United States, giving greater rights to
consumers, content owners and users. Compliance may be more costly or may
require us to change our business practices or restrict our service offerings
relative to those in the United States. Our failure to comply with foreign laws
could subject us to penalties ranging from fines to bans on our ability to offer
our services".
posted on January 5, 2001 05:44:46 AMblanche, please, relax.
There are any number of bills hanging about which attempt to regulate the internet in general and internet trade in particular. (One that comes to mind is an attempt to tax e-sales.) The isue of "THE MANNER IN WHICH PERSONAL INFORMATION IS COLLECTED FROM USERS AND PROVIDED TO THIRD PARTIES" and potential legislation appears to relate to spam. I believe the French lawsuit involved Yahoo and items prohibited to be sold in France (in this case, Nazi-related items).
Any of these laws could, of course, affect how ebay - and, consequently, its sellers - conduct business - for ill OR good. If ebay has to provide reports to the Fed or state governments on e-sales so that sellers can somehow be taxed, that's additional paperwork for ebay, which cuts into profits. If ebay is somehow legally required to aggressively hunt down spammers harvesting its customer data, that's more work required to cover ebay's behind. If ebay is going to be held liable by a government for permitting banned items to be shown on its site, ebay has to cover its behind by either developing a way to ensure those items don't appear in listings visible to that country (more work), or ban the items altogether from ebay (fewer listings, less revenues).
None of this is news, nor does it imply ebay is teetering on the brink of disaster.
I really think you need to read another company's 10-Q or prospectus to get some perspective on "risk factors". Think of how your own "risk factor" list might read.
posted on January 5, 2001 05:55:21 AM
HCQ -
Good point. If you pick the healthiest publically traded company you can think of, the SEC filing will read like an obituary for it.
Those sections are often called the "Gloom and Doom" paragraphs.
posted on January 5, 2001 06:17:27 AM
"Often" called?
I thought that was their official term
And if you think those are scary, blanche, I suggest you not even peek at the enclosures with prescription med. The side-effects warnings alone will cause heart-attack.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Jan 5, 2001 06:19 AM ]
posted on January 5, 2001 08:38:09 AM
Hello HCQ. You probably know by now how I feel about "third parties" in general especially in regard to scum sucking advertisers. The reference to my above post wasn't made because I think eBay is going down the tubes. Actually, I don't think that's the case at all. My concern with the statement "SEVERAL STATES HAVE PROPOSED LEGISLATION THAT WOULD LIMIT THE USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION GATHERED ONLINE OR REQUIRE ONLINE SERVICES TO ESTABLISH PRIVACY POLICIES" and "THE MANNER IN WHICH PERSONAL INFORMATION IS COLLECTED FROM USERS AND PROVIDED TO THIRD PARTIES" has to do with my perception that eBay currently is SHARING our personal info with third parties. That's the way I interpreted that statement. Have you read eBay's so called and ever changing privacy policy?
I actually have read quite a few company 10-Q's since I do my own research when investing in stocks and I've found it possible to pick up a few tidbits of info about a company regarding their practices or future direction mixed in with the standard language and risk factors. I think the SEC filings are a good read.
Blanche
[ edited by bhearsch on Jan 5, 2001 08:49 AM ]
posted on January 5, 2001 09:23:05 AM
Blanche the one idea that jumps out at me from that gobbldy-goop is that if an item is illegal within the U.S., but legal in some other country, then eBay intends to allow the item to be sold on that international site.
In other words, if Kablamistan permits free sales of automatic weapons, then eBay Kablamistan will allow listings for automatic weapons. That's how I interpret (a part of) that.
eBay Kablamistan will not operate under the same set of "allowed/prohibited" items.
ahh, Kablamistan! The rolling hills, beautiful sunrises and sunsets. The sounds of rappid gunfire throughout the day and nights. Bloody human body parts and shell casings in the streets.
posted on January 5, 2001 10:16:08 AM
Or, beverly, it could simply mean that such legislation, if it were passed in the states where it's been proposed," might require ebay "to establish privacy policies" different from its current policies to be in line with the law.
Reread the text again:
[i]changes to existing laws or the passage of new laws intended to address [the issue of how personal information is collected from users and provided to third parties] could directly affect the way we do business or could create uncertainty in the marketplace. This could reduce demand for our services, increase the cost of doing business as a result of litigation costs or increased service delivery costs, or
otherwise harm our business.
This could just as easily - and, IMHO, more probably - refer to the cost of increased security measures and defense litigation if those "new laws" created liability for a sites which collects personal information for its own use but, because of allegedly inadequate security measures, that personal information was "harvested" by a third party.
I think you're confusing "possiblities" with "probabilities".
And unless you can back up your "perception" with some credible evidence, I also think you're spending waaaay too much time looking under the bed.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Jan 5, 2001 10:16 AM ]
If he's still lurking I would like to clarify that the SEC filings are PUBLIC records and anyone may access them.
